Hip-Tips Vol. 13

Ultra-cool. Just. Don’t even say otherwise. Do, and I will print out your comment, set it on fire in my office wastebasket, dance around the flames, and then sleep the dreamless sleep of a tired child. The vid for Peter, Bjorn, and John’s catchy, head-bobbin’ “Nothing to Worry About” is awesomized by the inclusion of footage of ‘50s-lovin’ Japanese guys dancing in public. Apparently, the subculture’s members regularly gather at particular urban depots or other populated places and, well, just dance. (Other Japanese subcultures do, too; dance in public, that is.) Fort Worth needs some similarly cracked examples of similarly good, similarly clean fun. “If you’re SUCH a poet / Twist your tongue and show it.” PB & J = awesome.

Catchy Yeah Yeah Yeahs song I recently noticed backdropping the comings and goings of the 34-going-on-16-year-old cast members of Gossip Girl, inspiring me to wax juvenile: “Which character, specifically, is said ‘Zero’?” With the vid’s airing, Karen O has officially become the band – she’s in just about every single frame. She also evidently has had a stylist or 12 sicced on her. Good for her. Love her voice. (Listen for the high-pitched, surely synthesized “ohhh”’s.) Trés that chick from Berlin. What ever happened to her, anyway? Perhaps more pressingly, why was yours truly watching GG? Well, except for Antiques Roadshow, Monday-night TV doesn’t necessarily thrill.

You’ve gotta love a heavy indie-rock song that’s not about “you” and/or love and/or relationships. Well, actually, Glasvegas’ “Geraldine” is indeed about love not of the kind between sex-having people. Rather, it’s of the unique kind between a client and his or her social worker. And it’s not the least bit schmaltzy!

May have mentioned him before, but whatever: Adolf Wolfli (1864-1930), a clinically insane convicted child molester from Switzerland who painted and drew ultra-committed tableaux – “committed” as in “you must be super-committed and/or daft to spend as much time on repetitive detail as you do” – all laced with mythological imagery and spiritual potency. Colorful, too.

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